Our Next poetess was one
of my favorite nuns at Regina Laudis. Everything I know about herbs I
learned from her. She was a cultured, brilliant woman and most generous
with her knowledge. Mother Jerome von Nagel Mussayassul, died at the
Abbey in 2006, at the venerable age of 98, still active with her work.
She entered Monastic Life in 1958, at the age of 50, having lived an
international life as a citizen of the world that took her from her
birthplace, Berlin - Charlottenburg, to Cairo, Alexandria, Florence, and
New York before entering RL.
Melanie
"Muska" von Nagel was born in 1908, one of three daughters to General
Major Karl Freiheer von Nagel, Commander of the Bavarian First Heavy Cavalry
Regiment and Chamberlain at the Bavarian Court, and Mabel Dillon Nesmith, from
a prominent New York family. She spent her early childhood in Munich and the surrounding Bavarian
countryside until the assassination of her father in 1918.
For
Melanie, the years between the wars marked the beginning of her introduction to
international society as well as the beginning of her life as a serious,
published writer. She lived for a time in Florence
and in 1944, having returned to Germany
and with the Second World War in full progress, she met and married Halil-beg
Mussayassul, a prince from the Caucasus Mountains, who was a highly regarded
portrait painter with a studio in Munich.
During and after the war, they gave shelter to refugees, mostly Russian,
including many concentration camp survivors. Speaking eight languages fluently,
she was also a great service to the Displaced Persons camps.
At the
close of World War II, she and her husband Halil began a life in New York. After his
death shortly after, Melanie continued to live in New York, pursuing her writing, and
supporting, fostering and contributing to its cultural life. In spite of this
stimulating existence, she felt an emptiness that led her to pursue her long
standing attraction to Monastic Life. Visiting the Abbey she instinctively
realized that she was suddenly and finally "at home".
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| Painting of Muska by Halil |
In 1957,
she entered Regina Laudis, writing, "I'm being led. Who else can plan the
ways that rise from roots to tips of meadow grass?" Her life at the Abbey was simple and humble,
in stark comparison to her previous life in Europe and America. Always
faithful to the Divine Office, she received through it the energy necessary for
the many duties of daily life.
Perhaps
her most outstanding public accomplishment was her work as the well known
author Muska Nagel. Progressing from book reviews early in her life to her own
poetry and translations of other authors, most significantly her old friend Paul
Celan, was a lifelong work. She continued writing and publishing until her
death.
Understanding
the strength of an Abbey as a stabilizing center, Mother Jerome worked with the
land records of Bethlehem
and neighboring towns. She gave those interested, including the young in her
own community, a stronger sense of their roots and the spiritual richness of
the land which nurtures them.
Mother
Jerome was a magnet for young and old, who sought out this woman of
inspiration, hope, wisdom, humor, faith and unquenchable thirst for life.
Groups of young persons traveled regularly from Germany to learn from her, as did
the people of Daghestan, the country of her deceased husband, who
affectionately considered her the mother of their country.
When
Melanie von Nagel was clothed in the Benedictine habit as a Novice, she
received the religious name of Jerome, after the Saint who devoted his life to
scholarship, teaching, writing and translating. She fulfilled her name
throughout her religious life, by prayer, teaching and study. Three books of her poetry were published, these two poems from "Things That Surround Us" (1987).
OWL in the COLD
The thoughts that come forbidden to my house
are like a
flock of parakeets
amazing in
this green of rain
and
loneliness.
They preen
their feathers as they take flight,
light,
swirling,
not for me
to hold,
just to
reflect their nimbleness,
peering, as
in a darker season, does
the owl out
of her winter nesting
into the
light
bright
flight
of
snowflakes
in the
cloaking cold.
FROM A MIRROR
It was good that you hated my sight and
threw me away
in the
garden.
I lie where
I fell. Now each of my splinters
reflects,
open and free,
a different
angle: surprises,
exchanges.
Each fragment filled to the brim
with the
nudging of pebbles, of grasses - a dewdrop
curving in
love pours sky into one flash of me;
another facet
embraces
the amaranth
belly, the wing
of a
beetle, a grasshopper’s thigh pulsing red,
gold
tatters of cloud.
Like the grass
I am eaten
by sun and by rain, learning,
in fragments,
how wisdom
comes at
the end.
I thank
you.
